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Storyboard does not load anymore after upgrading Xcode to version 9.1 (9B55)

After the update of Xcode to build 9b55 this morning my storyboard did not load anymore.

Xcode is too new
'This file has been edited in a version of Xcode which is unsupported by the designer. Documents saved in Xcode 9.1 format, or older, are supported.'

I did not even open the storyboard in Xcode Designer... I use the alfa channel 7.3 Build 708 of Visual Studio.
Is there anything that I can change in the XML of the storyboard to make it open in Visual Studio again ?

The storyboard starts with :

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>

Would lowering the toolsVersion work ? If so, what would be a "good" version ?

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Like I was guessing, changing the toolsVersion attribute is a workaround to fix my problem.
I set it back to the version number of another solution that still worked.
In my case it was toolsVersion="13196", fortunately I can proceed with my work now.
I find working in Xcode still nicer than working in the Visual Studio Designer (this is an understatement...) , but you cannot set C# names to objects
(or better phrased: "i do not know how to assign C# names to objects in Xcode", if someone knows, let me know ;-))

Hi Bert, I'm having the same issue. I've tried to install an earlier version of XCode but only 9.1 9b55 is available. I re-installed Visual Studio for Mac Community in case there was a newer version but neither of these actions made any difference. I'm new to all this. Can you tell me exactly how I change the toolsVersion attribute and how do I determine a version number from a solution that is still working? Thanks, Brian.

Brain, open the storyboard (or xib) file in source code editor by right clicking on the file and selecting Open with Source Code Editor. A storyboard file is an XML file. You'll see the toolsVersion somewhere on line 2. Sad but true.

thank you all. Changing the tools version down to 13196 helped me too. I guess we have to do this from now on for every project/storyboard we create until Xamarin releases an update? I also notice if you close and reopen the storyboard, it changes the version back to the "new" version again. So I have to keep changing it back to 13196 every time I open it up. It's better than being stuck in the water but I'll be extra careful in the future before blindly upgrading to a new version of XCode as it's sort of made a slight mess of my Xamarin ios experience.

Does anyone know when they'll release an XCode 9.1 compatible version of Xamarin that will correct this?

Thanks for the workaround. If you create outlets in xcode IB then your project won't be built. So I added outlets from xamarin iOS designer then changed the toolsVersion to "13527" in order to build the project properly. You need to do this everytime if you want to edit the storyboard.

My solution was to download and install an older version of Xcode. I open the older Xcode from downloads, then I open my storyboard file and save it. The new save version can be opened from visual studio

Got the same issue. There are two way work with this.
One is to create your own interfaces (i'm not allowed to post link).

The other option is to open with Source code editor and change 'toolsVersion="12120" systemVersion="16E195"' in the document tag. And change 'version="12088" inside the plugIn tag. Then save. This lets me reopen.

Changing the toolsVersion to 13196 for my storyboard does work for most of them.
However, I have one particular storyboard which will not open. The designer will be stuck trying to load it without giving any error messages.

I have this problem too.
I understand you are trying to solve the problem, I'm using Xamarin for more than 3 years, I saw this kind of problems alot in Xamarin, and each time I should solve the challenges and find a way for fixing IDE, Designer, Xcode compatibility, device support, API support and ......
I was so disappointed that for more than 1 week we couldn't use Xcode 9.1 and iOS 11.1, so just wasting time, and delay in project release.
I think this is time to switch to Xcode and swift for real projects. at least we have better support from Apple there.

Btw, I was using the most up-to-date version of vs2017, xamarin, and Xcode as of nov 13th 2017. From the Mac, I switched Xamarin to the beta branch and although things seems significantly slower, I can now open storyboards and work on them without any problem.

Just an update from my end, I have made progress on reproducing the loading issue from a project that was shared with me. The bug report tracking this is currently private but I will post back once I have more info from engineering on their investigation.

The current workaround does seem to be to Clean the project before opening the storyboard file.

This morning I installed preview 4 of Visual Studio for Mac (alpha channel)
Version 7.3 Preview (7.3 build 764)
The storyboard now loads without any problems and and the compatibility issue with Xcode seems to be resolved too.
Xcode 9.1 (13532)
Many thanks for everyone who contributed to this solution.

No exception or anything (unless I was being impatient). Just opening the designer and it would get stuck on loading.

I plan on updating my machines to the newest stable branch today but I won't be able to verify if the problem still exists until next week. Thank you for your investigation and continual support, this is appreciated.